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Not even Seinfeld can save The Marriage Ref

By Joel RubinoffWaterloo Region Record

Mon., March 22, 2010

Watching the new Jerry Seinfeld-created reality show The Marriage Ref (10 p.m. Thursday on City), I had this image of the former standup comic, now 55, strolling around his $32 million Long Island mansion wondering what the heck to do with the rest of his life.

“I'm so rich and famous and successful,” I could imagine him thinking, maneuvering around his world-class Porsche collection. “And so bleepin' bored!”

And why not?

Seinfeld, the game-changing sitcom that redefined TV comedy, became a pop-culture phenomenon and netted its namesake a hundred trillion bucks — after taxes — has been off the air since '98 and, like the proverbial ninth-inning homer, would be impossible to top.

And so the Brooklyn-born innovator — like other famous fat cats cut off from their muses — has become a celebrity dabbler, unleashing a series of unfortunate vanity projects that generate massive amounts of hype only to fall flat with a public for whom credible entertainment, even from former heroes, demands some measure of artistic commitment.

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First it was his valiantly wrongheaded return to stand up — as if he could somehow turn back the clock and revisit life as a starving comic — then a series of credit card commercials that indicated a man more interested in commerce than comedy, then the animated Bee Movie, a wonky, not entirely successful exercise that, in a dubious promotional stunt, saw him gliding through the air in a giant bee costume.

And now we have The Marriage Ref, which draws on cheesy '70s game shows like Hollywood Squares, a meandering, overly-affected train wreck that offers the uncomfortable sight of Hollywood A-listers — all of whom, we can assume, owe Seinfeld a favour — dispensing lame witticisms in response to media-coached couples feuding over the ephemeral distractions of day-to-day life.

“Women come and go, but a stuffed dog is forever!” cracked Alec Baldwin after a couple argued about the merits of mounting a deceased family pet.

It's an obvious quip, not entirely unamusing, but — and this is what I think people find infuriating — the studio audience is in stitches, host Tom Papa is busting with belly laughs and Seinfeld himself is doubled over with laughter, slapping both the coffee table and his forehead with unbridled ecstasy.

The applause, naturally, is deafening.

But you know what?

The show — pronounced “an ugly, unfunny, patronizing mess” (Star-Ledger) and “the most God-awful mishmash of a comedy-variety show” (Time) — isn't funny, the concept is tired and the recruitment of popcult mega-stars like Ricky Gervais, Madonna and Larry David to preside over such manufactured idiocy is like using an atomic bomb to kill a cockroach.

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Seinfeld isn't alone, of course, in following the whims of his ego. Pop culture is littered with the detritus of celebrities who make their name in one field and then — drunk on hubris and boredom — decide to unveil supposedly unexpressed talents in another.

It wasn't long ago that actor Keanu Reeves thought his band Dogstar would set the world on fire (alas, no takers,) actress Scarlett Johansson got it in her head an album of Tom Waits covers is what her fans really wanted (er... no), Joaquin Phoenix ditched acting to try his luck as a goofy bearded hip hop star (his monosyllabic appearance on David Letterman iced that trajectory), and Madonna, of all people, decided world domination on the pop charts wasn't enough — she had to be an actress as well (and we all know how Shanghai Surprise and Body of Evidence turned out.)

With rare exceptions — like Zooey Deschanel, a respected actress whose indie-folk leanings have earned critical respect — most of these attempts fall flat, and big bucks celebrities retreat into their worlds of money and privilege until their egos once again demand attention.

“Honestly, all kidding aside, this is ridiculous!” intoned Marriage Ref panelist Larry David, asked to cast judgment on a woman who taunts her husband with an ex-lover's prosthetic leg.

“They're so moronic I don't even want to help them. Could we wrap this up? I have to go to the bathroom.''

Poor Jerry Seinfeld. He once starred in a show about nothing. Now it's become his entire career.

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